She blinked at him and he readied for a fight. It didn’t come. “Fine. I’m too tired to argue. And I have to get this off.” She moved one hand to the bodice of her dress and wiggled it back and forth, sending her breasts jiggling inside the fitted top.
Aiden stared. Actually stared. Like when he’d found his older brother’s stash of Playboys for the first time. No one filled out their clothes like Sadie.
She cleared her throat and he jerked his eyes north. “Help me?”
Crap.
He was being tested, here, in the cruelest way. She was asking him to undress her? Exposing herself to him, and Aiden to her naked body? He couldn’t do it while sporting a woody or she’d cut him off at the knees. Drunk or not.
Aiden mentally tied a noose around his mojo. And pulled. “Sure thing.”
He followed her into the room and she dropped on the bed, falling back with an oomph! She toed at her shoes until they hit the floor. Aiden retrieved them, dangerous-looking spikes covered with winking rhinestones. How women walked in these things, he’d never know. Sadie told him once that because of her diminutive size she preferred the tallest shoes. He’d concurred at the time. Without them, Sadie only came to the middle of his chest. He was in favor of any contraption if it meant bringing her lips closer to his.
And now he was thinking of kissing her. Again.
He shook his head to wipe away the memories of the intense kisses they’d shared in the past: the sound of her truncated breaths against his ear, the feel of her fingernails spearing into his hair. He tracked back to the bed, jaw set, brain focused squarely on the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. He pulled back the covers intending to bury the tempting vision of her breasts bursting from the top of her dress, but she rolled onto her side before he could.
“Unzip,” Sadie demanded, her manicured nails fumbling at the back of her dress. When he hesitated, Sadie shot him a displeased look over her shoulder, crinkling her heavily made-up eyes at him.
Even sexier when she’s angry, he thought with a groan.
Aiden reached for the zipper, ignoring his impulse to go slowly, listen to every snick as he examined all of her smooth, porcelain flesh beneath the bridesmaid’s dress. It’d been too long since he’d been allowed to touch this woman. Too. Effing. Long. The zipper parted to reveal what appeared to be a sleeveless white straitjacket with about a hundred hooks.
“Now this.” She did a backward point.
Aiden paused. The thing looked as penetrable as Fort Knox. “Can’t you sleep in it?”
“Just do it. Nothing you haven’t seen before.” She turned her head at an awkward angle so she could look at him. A little pleat formed on her brow as if she was reconsidering. “I mean, not me, but other girls.” She flopped her head onto the pillow with a whump.
Thanks for the reminder, Aiden thought tersely.
He and Sadie hadn’t had a chance to get that far. Okay, that wasn’t true. They’d had plenty of chances. Each time they saw one another, the dates had lasted at least six or seven hours. Or overnight. They couldn’t seem to escape one another, or stop talking, or stop touching. She’d seen him stripped down to his briefs, and he’d seen her bare legs poking out of one of his T-shirts, but they’d always stopped short of going further. Both of them had been hurt before and neither of them was anxious to repeat their painful pasts.
So, yes, Sadie was right. He hadn’t technically seen her naked, but he had felt enough of her bare flesh under his palms to give his imagination a hell of a show.
He scooted the bedside lamp closer to investigate the contraption she’d bound herself in. He could dismantle a car; surely he could handle this. Turns out he had to make the thing tighter before the hooks would release. Each time, Sadie grunted, until he got halfway down her back and she blew out a whooshing breath. He made quick work of the rest.
“Thank God.” She sat up, one hand covering the sagging top of her gown, withdrew the corset, and dropped it unceremoniously to the floor. “I owe you, Downey. Now help me out of this dress and go away.”
He swallowed thickly, recognizing the painful familiarity of the moment. The night she was on his couch and slipped her bra out from underneath her tank top. He’d clutched her to him, and she’d panted against his neck as her nipples abraded his bare chest. It was then she’d hesitated. Wordlessly, but he’d felt the slightest bit of tension creep into her shoulders. He backed off, but didn’t let her go, tucking her into bed against him and sleeping next to her through the night.
That was his Sadie. Minx on the outside, lamb on the inside. Seeing this side of her again, being reminded of what they’d had—what he’d thrown away…